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Topic: Save the Adirondack Scenic RR! (Read 326 times)

Save the Adirondack Scenic RR!

« on: Nov 1st, 2014, 10:13am »

This is a somewhat complex issue. NYS DOT and DEC is apparently considering tearing out the former NYC rails that the Adirondack Scenic RR uses and converting it to 100% trail use. For the past several years I have seen articles and posts about it and it really sounds like there has been a full court press to get rid of the RR, including plenty of dirty tricks.

There is a powerpoint presentation by the NYS DEC at http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/lands_forests_pdf/rlptc2014shw.pdf that has a public comment email address nystravelcorridor@dot.ny.gov on page 25. I would like to suggest that everyone email that address and voice your support for the Adirondack Scenic RR.

Quote:

"There is an ongoing effort led by a group called ARTA - Adirondack Recreational Trail Advocates - to create a Rails to Trails recreational corridor and pull out the tracks the Adirondack Scenic Railroad uses. Link says it’s created a healthy discussion about recreation in the Park. He points out there are thousands of miles of hiking trails in the Adirondacks and the old Delaware and Hudson line has already had its tracks removed and could become a recreational trail.

The Adirondack Scenic Railway operates on two disconnected segments between Utica and Big Moose and Saranac Lake to Lake Placid. Link explains their goal is to complete the connection from Utica to Lake Placid by upgrading the segments that currently do not meet minimum passenger track standards."

Please save & expand the Adirodack Scenic Railroad!

I hope that was the correct thing to do.

Todd K Stearns

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Re: Save the Adirondack Scenic RR!

« Reply #2 on: Sep 15th, 2015, 10:05am »

Henry - Todd - Lodge Members -

Just had an opportunity to look at this brief thread. Anything new in efforts to repel the Barbarians and Mongol hordes (includes "greenie" hiking zealots?)?

Equipment question? The Car, SILVER SPRING? By the old book, exactly what the type at time of (obviously) PULLMAN build. Can't figure if delivered as an OBS/LOUNGE, or whether a BUSINESS Car for first owner customer...

MALONE — A judge sided today with the Adirondack Railway Preservation Society, ruling in favor of the group’s lawsuit against the state replacing tracks with a multi-use trail between Lake Placid and Tupper Lake.

In an order filed today, acting state Supreme Court Justice Robert Main Jr. found that state agencies’ decision to remove the tracks was arbitrary and capricious, as argued by ARPS, which does business as the Adirondack Scenic Railroad. The judge found that removing railroad infrastructure to construct a trail would effectively remove Segment 2 from Remsen-Lake Placid Travel Corridor designation; therefore, such a use could not be allowed in a unit management plan for the travel corridor.

Main found that the state did not successfully resolve historic preservation efforts or title issues to land within the corridor.

The railroad in question runs from Utica to Lake Placid, and the state owns the majority from Remsen to Lake Placid. ASR, under lease from the state, has run tourist trains from Utica to the Old Forge area since the early 1990s and from 2000 through 2016 ran them also between Lake Placid and Saranac Lake. Last year the state finalized a plan to replace the 34 miles of tracks between Tupper Lake and Lake Placid with a trail for biking, snowmobiling and other recreation, and to rehabilitate 45 miles of track to let trains proceed as far north as Tupper Lake. ARPS sued over the plan last year, but the state proceeded making plans for the trail and did not permit ASR to operate trains on the Tri-Lakes tracks this year. It also did not permit Rail Explorers to operate rail car rides out of Saranac Lake, as that company had for two years.

“The respondent Department of Environmental Conservation’s and the respondent Department of Transportation’s May 17, 2016, approval of the 2016 UMP is annulled and vacated, in its entirety, and in each and every part,” Main’s order says.

“Ordered that the matter of the revision to the 1996 UMP, and all other ancillary matters before this court, in the above captioned preceding, be, and they hereby are, remitted to the respondent Adirondack Park Agency, Department of Environmental Conservation, and Department of Transportation for the development and approval of a UMP that complies with the instant decision.”

Main finished the order by saying, “They hereby are enjoined and restrained from implementing the 2016 UMP pending preparation and approval of a revised UMP that conforms with the instant decision, order and judgment.”